Steven Singer, teacher and blogger in Pennsylvania, sums up the top ten reasons to reject school choice. Since National School Choice Week occurred just recently, Singer thought it was an appropriate time to explain what’s wrong with school choice.
- Voucher programs seldom provide full tuition, so parents must make up the difference. Wealthy parents and middle-income parents can do that, but not poor parents.
- Schools of choice don’t have to accept anyone who applies. The real choice belongs to the school. It gets to choose the students it wants.
- Charter schools are notorious for kicking out students they don’t want.
- Vouchers and charters offer less choice than public schools. If you don’t like the way they operate, you can choose to leave.
- Charter schools [and voucher schools] do no better and often much worse than public schools.
- Charter schools and voucher schools increase segregation.
To learn about the other four reasons why school choice is a bad choice, open and read the post.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks so much for giving my article a shout out, Diane. You’ve had a lot of excellent articles on the subject. Educating school choice advocates is the best way to celebrate school choice week!
“schools of chance, not schools of choice”!! and
“charters take away funding…” True that. And then they have the gall to sue if common sense dares to intervene
http://usuncut.com/class-war/charter-schools-steal-poor-kids/
Steve, thanks for another blog worth following!
The President is pushing a new duty for public schools:
“In the new economy, computer science isn’t an optional skill—it’s a basic skill.”
I don’t know if DC is aware of it, but public schools haven’t done so hot as far as funding since the recession.
“Plus/and” is a really nice slogan but it’s not reality. Public schools have budgets and they have to set priorities.
Maybe the President could advocate for some public school funding, so schools are at least at the level they were when he took office. I recognize these are state and local decisions, but they could really use a powerful national advocate rather than an “agnostic” or someone who keeps repeating “plus/and” with seemingly no recognition that choices have to be made, and will be made. They can’t just add and add and add and never subtract. These decisions involve trade-offs.
Public schools just took on the huge Common Core program and I have yet to see any recognition that it will cost them money. That reduces their discretionary spending ability.
Chiara: while I like your “plus/and” I am also partial to the related phrase—
“Mission creep.”
From the Wikipedia dictionary:
[start]
Mission creep is the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes. Mission creep is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs.
[end]
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_creep
When it comes to those selling and mandating rheephorm eduproducts, they will first tout their successes at very selected locations and then invoke the magic of the words “bring to scale.”
Used in tandem with “one size fits all.”
Thank you for your comments.
😎
That’s a mighty broad brush you paint with. There are places where none of your “observations” apply.
The President seems to have forgotten the role of education and reduced it to obtaining marketable skills. I agree that all students should have the opportunity to feel comfortable with using the tools of technology, but we must not forget that computers are tools. Too little thought has been directed toward how to use technology to enhance learning and advance instruction.